The British Columbia Road Runner, April 1965, Volume 2, Number 2
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THE BRITISH COLUMBIA APRIL, 19 65 Runner PUBLI SHED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF HIGHWAYS VOLUME 2, NUMBER 2 Peter Parson. Photo h Hope Slide Early Saturday morning January 9th, 1965; 'in ing out mainly in a south easterly direction and enormous land slide descended into the valley of the back up the north slope to a height of 100 to 200 Nicolum Creek about 13 miles east of Hope. The feet. The boundaries of the area swept by t he mud descending rock destroyed about two miles of the and slide debris are clearly visible along the south Hope-Princeton Highway filling up the bottom of side of the valley where the trees have been com the valley with rock and mud to depth up to 200 pletely removed' leaving a clean line marking its feet. The slide, consisting of millions of yards of path. rock, overburden and snow, descended from the top The immediate problem was to re-establish t he of the ridge of the 6,500 foot high mountains form Hope-Princeton Highway through the slide area and ing the north side of the valley. Outram Lake at the the situation was ably in hand by Jim Dennison, foot of the slide area was completely filled with slide Senior Maintenance Engineer, who stayed on the debris. The water and soft clay forming the lake bed job from early morning until late at night for .t he were displaced and projected violently up the oppo thirteen day period until the read was agai n opened site mountain side, and back into the vall ey spread- to traffic. (Cont'd on Page 2) SLIDE (Cont.) The job was tackled from both ends at the same time and active supervision of it was carried out by Al Slater, Regional Main tenance Engineer, Karnloops, and BobVeitch, District Superintendent from Merritt. Al Parkins was construction superintendent for the west end of the slide while Howard SUrline assumed the same responsibiUty for the east end where he was also assisted by Jack Chalmers, Maintenance Foreman at Allison Pass. Appreciation must also be ex pressed for the work of many others fro m both the district and regional personnel who gave readily of both time and equipment. Communications presented a special . problem and while arrangements were being made to establish a base radio station in the vicinity of the slide, Peter Elkington re Senior Maintenance Engineer Jim Dennison and Jack Chalmers. mained on the site and used his vehicle as a mobile radio base. A helicoptor was kept in constant service transporting men and ma terials from one end of the slide to the other. One of the problems encountered in the work was the very large boulders lacking in fine material, workmen finally resorted to the use of arnex powder to shatter these large boulders when drilling, blasting and catwork proved to be too slow. When the slide descended it gouged out soft material near the east end of the slide, when this soft material fell back it mixed with the slide material leaving pockets of this un stable material which were encountered in the road building. A creek on the opposite side of the valley was plugged by the slide and when the run-off water built up behind this 50 foot dam, workmen were taken in by helicoptor to blast a trench through the obstruction and allow the water to escape. About one mile of heavily timbered area had to be cleared to make way for the road. SO the struggle proceeded with bulldozers, jackhammers, c r usher s, graders, com pressors, shovel and dump trucks. Finding a suitable bed for a two lane gravel road over a muddled mess of rock and mud was no easy task, but it was effected in record. time by the use of the well proven recipe of wilUngness, co-op eration and good management. The fin ishing touch to a job well-done was the preparation of a parking lot with a capacity of several hundred cars for the sight-seers to satisfy their curiosity. Steve Burg«.. and Al Parkin 2 THE ROAD-RUNNER Volume 2 April, 1965 Number 2 Minister's Message Published Quarterly by Department of Highways-British Columbia 1690 Main St., North Vancouver Ray Baines-Executive Editor Arthur J . Schindel-Editor Associate Field Ed it ors Paul Connors North Vancouver Adam Klos ter ' North Vancouver Da ve War dell " Burnside J . W. Morr is ' Nanaimo Pat Mactl arthy Courtenay Bill Ryan North Vancouver Lloyd Bur gess New Westminster Ritchie Harold ' . ... ...... .. ... ..Oak Yard Ross Ellis Chilliwack Don MacSw een . .. Kamloops Mu rr ay Ram say Sa lmon Arm Murray Ra msay Salmon Arm Dave Bowm an . .. ... Revelstoke Al Desimone ' . Vernon Fred Evans Kelowna Pete Fuoco Penticton J ames Holmes Merritt Dave Roberts . .. ... .. .. Lillooet Denis Hill ., Williams Lake Dorothy Wilkins . .. .. .. Gran d Forks Bert Staite :' Rossland Bill Higgins . ... .. .. Nelson The approach of summer means the Fred Angrignon , New Denver approach of our busiest season for construc Irene Labelle . .. ... .. .. .. .Creston Vince Smith Cranbrook tion and highway improvements. It also R. M. Boss , . .. .. .. .. FErnie means the annual influx of many thousands John Edgar , Golden of tourists to British Columbia. This some Bill Ingram , . , Victoria times results in a clash of interests. When Steve Sviatko . .. .. .. .. ' Smithers our tourist bureaus would like to present Clyde Smaaslet Pouce Coupe Earl Lund Prince George British Columbia's best side to the traveller Pat Tondevold Fort St. John -bright, shining and smooth-we have to Pat O'Toole . , Terrace come along and rough it up a bit here and Al Park . .. .. ..... .. .. ... Prince GEorge there. Our business is building and improu Al Limacher .. .. .. .. Pri nce George ing roads and you can't do that without Geor ge Ha rper Quesnel George Kent Vande rh oof making a little dust. Pa t Dunn Burns Lake Roger McKeown Prince Rupert But the tourist business is everybody's business and we are as much in it as gov ernment travel bureaus and resort oper ators. We can help by easing things as R. R. Mascot much as possible for the traveller, by being courteous and helpful when we delay him Official Bird and dirty his car, but offering assistance and guidance when we detour him and by Arizona That completing ourjobs speedily and efficiently. A Jan uary, 1965 "Road Runner" was sent to Dave Gray, Kingman, Arizona. Dave used to be Radio Operator at Karn Tourists are big business in British Co loops One. In reply he sent us the attached picture of a Desert lumbia but even if they didn't spend a nickel Road Runner with the following note: "Dear friends, Thanks we in the Department of Highways should so much for the Road Runner which is ver y interesting to me, do our best to be good hosts and good and even more so to my southern friends. This card shows neighbors. the state Bird of Arizona, our brand of Road Runner, the real McCoy. Dave Gray." 3 The paint section is run by Rod offins o cried Research Jobs Darby. Here all paints to be used The Material s Branch first started as a two man team in 1952 at U.B.C. by the Department are evaluated each year for hiding power, viscosity, ap- Late r it moved to the basement of the Douglas Building. plicability and appearance and many In 1956 a br ight new building was other factors which are laid down by constructed at the corne r of Oswego the Canadian Standards Association. street and Kingston street to hous e both Mater ia ls and Tr affic Personnel and Paints are compared by subjecting laborator y equipment. Under the di them to artificial rapid weathering r ection of R.C. Thurber and C.O. treatments in two large box-like ma Br awner the Br anch grew into a body chines called the weatherometer and of about 80 men spending roughly the salt fog cabinet. $750,000. 00 a year. In addition to the laborator y In Victor ia there is a s mall er laboratory in eac h Region pre sided over by Regional Materia s En- meers: J . Montador in Vancouver, La r ry de Boer in Kam oops, Mario Mer lo in Nelson and Earl Lund in Prine Geor ge. The pr incipal duti es of the branch consist of investigati ng soil conditions E. E. Readshau: for br idge foundations , lands lides, and Senior Materials Engineer route locations, finding and testing the quality of gr avel deposits, inspecting the quality of mater ials such as con When soil samples and test hole cr ete curb and guard rarls, piles, logs from the drill crews arrive at culv ert ipe, paint and timber, and the laboratory, design engineers Andy attempting to solve odd problems such Reid, John Hvozdanski, Mike Nesbitt, Rod Darby at the uieatherometer as how to stop water leaks in tunnels , Frank Laronde, Don Mason arrange how to put new indestr uctible sur- for suitable tests to be carried out in Other materials suchas epoxy resins aclngs in br idges and how to det er the soil testing laboratory and pre and proprietry surfacing materials ar e mine how much fil l you can put over pare recommendations on what loads also evaluated by the members of the a metal culve rt without col lapsing it. can be carried by the SOil, how far paint section. piles have to be driven, what type of It would take too long to enumerate piles would be SUitable, or what pro all the investigations carriedout, some cedures should be adopted to prevent quite short, others stretching out over or cure landslides and fill slip-outs, years, being taken up and laid aside etc.